383 research outputs found
Lecciones de las crisis mexicanas para Corea
The Corean crisis in 1997-1998 resembled the Mexican crisis of 1982 more than it did the Mexican crisis of 1995, because it was more associated with international bank debt. It would help if government did not provide implict guarantees on this kind of debt
Improved RE31 Analogues Containing Modified Nucleic Acid Monomers: Thermodynamic, Structural, and Biological Effects.
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Chemical Society via the DOI in this record.RE31 is a 31-nt DNA aptamer, consisting of the G-quadruplex and a duplex domain, which is able to effectively prolong thrombin time. This article reports on the influence of certain modified nucleotide residues on thermodynamic and biological properties as well as the folding topology of RE31. Particularly, the effect of the presence of nucleosides in unlocked nucleic acid (UNA), locked nucleic acid (LNA), or β-l-RNA series was evaluated. The studies presented herein show that all modified residues can influence thermal and biological stabilities of G-quadruplex in a position-dependent manner. The aptamers modified simultaneously with UNA at the T15 position and LNAs in the duplex part possess the highest value of melting temperature and a 2-fold higher anticoagulant effect. Importantly, RE31 variants modified with nucleosides in UNA, LNA, or β-l-RNA series exhibit unchanged G-quadruplex folding topology. Crucially, introduction of any of the modified residues into RE31 causes prolongation of aptamer stability in human serum.National Science CenterPolish Ministry of Science and Higher Educatio
Ground state properties of fluxlines in a disordered environment
A new numerical method to calculate exact ground states of multi-fluxline
systems with quenched disorder is presented, which is based on the minimum cost
flow algorithm from combinatorial optimization. We discuss several models that
can be studied with this method including their specific implementations,
physically relevant observables and results: 1) the N-line model with N
fluxlines (or directed polymers) in a d-dimensional environment with point
and/or columnar disorder and hard or soft core repulsion; 2) the vortex glass
model for a disordered superconductor in the strong screening limit and 3) the
Sine-Gordon model with random pase shifts in the strong coupling limit.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, 3 eps-figures include
Application of a minimum cost flow algorithm to the three-dimensional gauge glass model with screening
We study the three-dimensional gauge glass model in the limit of strong
screening by using a minimum cost flow algorithm, enabling us to obtain EXACT
ground states for systems of linear size L<=48. By calculating the domain-wall
energy, we obtain the stiffness exponent theta = -0.95+/-0.03, indicating the
absence of a finite temperature phase transition, and the thermal exponent
nu=1.05+/-0.03. We discuss the sensitivity of the ground state with respect to
small perturbations of the disorder and determine the overlap length, which is
characterized by the chaos exponent zeta=3.9+/-0.2, implying strong chaos.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, 2 eps-figures include
Nature of the vortex-glass order in strongly type-II superconductors
The stability and the critical properties of the three-dimensional
vortex-glass order in random type-II superconductors with point disorder is
investigated in the unscreened limit based on a lattice {\it XY} model with a
uniform field. By performing equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations for the system
with periodic boundary conditions, the existence of a stable vortex-glass order
is established in the unscreened limit. Estimated critical exponents are
compared with those of the gauge-glass model.Comment: Error in the reported value of the exponent eta is correcte
Numerical Study of Order in a Gauge Glass Model
The XY model with quenched random phase shifts is studied by a T=0 finite
size defect energy scaling method in 2d and 3d. The defect energy is defined by
a change in the boundary conditions from those compatible with the true ground
state configuration for a given realization of disorder. A numerical technique,
which is exact in principle, is used to evaluate this energy and to estimate
the stiffness exponent . This method gives in
2d and in 3d, which are considerably larger than
previous estimates, strongly suggesting that the lower critical dimension is
less than three. Some arguments in favor of these new estimates are given.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revtex. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Alpha-l-Locked nucleic acid-modified antisense oligonucleotides induce efficient splice modulation in vitro
Alpha-l-Locked nucleic acid (α-l-LNA) is a stereoisomeric analogue of locked nucleic acid (LNA), which possesses excellent biophysical properties and also exhibits high target binding affinity to complementary oligonucleotide sequences and resistance to nuclease degradations. Therefore, α-l-LNA nucleotides could be utilised to develop stable antisense oligonucleotides (AO), which can be truncated without compromising the integrity and efficacy of the AO. In this study, we explored the potential of α-l-LNA nucleotides-modified antisense oligonucleotides to modulate splicing by inducing Dmd exon-23 skipping in mdx mouse myoblasts in vitro. For this purpose, we have synthesised and systematically evaluated the efficacy of α-l-LNA-modified 2′-O-methyl phosphorothioate (2′-OMePS) AOs of three different sizes including 20mer, 18mer and 16mer AOs in parallel to fully-modified 2′-OMePS control AOs. Our results demonstrated that the 18mer and 16mer truncated AO variants showed slightly better exon-skipping efficacy when compared with the fully-23 modified 2′-OMePS control AOs, in addition to showing low cytotoxicity. As there was no previous report on using α-l-LNA-modified AOs in splice modulation, we firmly believe that this initial study could be beneficial to further explore and expand the scope of α-l-LNA-modified AO therapeutic molecules
Investigation of growth responses in saprophytic fungi to charred biomass
We present the results of a study testing the response of two saprophytic white-rot fungi species, Pleurotus pulmonarius and Coriolus versicolor, to charred biomass (charcoal) as a growth substrate. We used a combination of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, elemental abundance measurements, and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (<sup>13</sup>C and <sup>15</sup>N) to investigate fungal colonisation of control and incubated samples of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) wood, and charcoal from the same species produced at 300 °C and 400 °C. Both species of fungi colonise the surface and interior of wood and charcoals over time periods of less than 70 days; however, distinctly different growth forms are evident between the exterior and interior of the charcoal substrate, with hyphal penetration concentrated along lines of structural weakness. Although the fungi were able to degrade and metabolise the pine wood, charcoal does not form a readily available source of fungal nutrients at least for these species under the conditions used in this study
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